Jaime Hernandez: The 1982 No P Dime is the first U.S. business strike coin which accidentally left the U.S. Mint, without containing its intended mint mark. Because of the missing mint mark, this coin is now worth hundreds of times more than its original face value.

The 1982 No P Dimes were originally discovered on December of 1982. Most of the coins were initially found in Sandusky Ohio, where approximately 8,000 to 10,000 coins were reportedly found. Many more 1982 No P Dimes were also handed out at the local Cedar Point Amusement Park as change, with additional examples also being found in circulation around the same area. Walter Placzwkis, Andrew Macdonald and Lane Durkee were some of three first individuals who were credited with discovering the coins.

Coincidentally, there were two different varieties discovered for the 1982 No P Dimes. The first being the sharply struck examples, while the second variety displayed a much weaker strike.

In Walter Breen’s Encyclopedia of U.S. Coins, he mentions a prominent dealer from Toledo who managed to single handedly purchase over 1,500 examples of the 1982 No P Dimes when they were originally discovered, but the book doesn’t mention the dealer’s name. However, in 2007 I had the opportunity to speak with Clyde Englehardt from Toledo Coin Exchange, this is the dealer whom Walter Breen is referring too in his book.

Clyde who has been a full time coin dealer since 1960 told me about the 1982 No P Dimes in a very detailed conversation. Clyde says he still remembers the time when the coins were first being discovered and how some of the local dealers were offering him the coins in large quantities, including the local bank tellers who were also offering the coins to him by the roll. Clyde also mentioned that he was only able to place 47 to 48 sharply struck 1982 No P Dimes in a roll, while being able to place 50 or 51 of the weakly struck varieties inside a roll, since the sharply struck examples were thicker than the weaker struck varieties.

Clyde also mentions that he never found a single example of the 1982 No P Dime in circulation, even though he was in the area where most of the coins were being found. Nonetheless, he is very happy that he had the opportunity to purchase many of the 1982 No P Dimes when they were first being discovered. Additionally, this was a very exciting time in the coin hobby, and for him to be in the mix of it all, only made it much more exciting. Clyde later donated examples of the 1982 No Dimes to the Smithsonian Institution and the ANA.

Furthermore, in 1982 the expected die life of a Roosevelt dime die was somewhere around 75,000 coins being struck per each pair of dies. Since, there is a Strong and a Weak variety known from two different dies, it is estimated that no more than 150,000 of these coins exist. PCGS has graded just over 2,000 of both the 1982 No P Dime varieties and keep in mind, Clyde handled over 1,500 coins alone. This means that there are probably many more coins somewhere out there just waiting to be found.

Since the 1982 No P Dimes were beeing found in circulation, they brought a lot of attention to the coin hobby when they were originally discovered. In return, many people became coin collectors by trying to find these coins in circulation, where many of these individuals couldn’t believe that the coins were worth a premium due to the missing details or mint mark, (especially since this is very uncommon in most other markets). In fact, out of all the markets in the entire world, it is very difficult to find a market such as the coin market, where an item is desired more because the item is missing certain details. The 1982 No P Dime is just one prime example of many other coins which command huge premiums in the coin market because it lacks certain details.

Finally, the 1982 No P Dime is a special coin in numismatics, since it was the first and still remains as the only business strike coin which left the U.S. Mint, without containing its intended mint mark on the obverse side of the coin.